1. Discuss the following questions in groups of 2-4. Make good use of topical vocabulary (See Section 3, task 8, points a and b)

1. Do you agree with the author that ambition is “one of those peculiar words”, which help reveal your own personality as soon as you speak out your own vision of their meaning? Why?

2. What do you think makes the author sure that ambition is behind dreams?

3. What category of people do you think is implied when the author speaks about “the single-minded”, who have given ambition a bad name?

4. Do you agree that the ambitious are socially detached people? Why?

5. Do you think that it is right to say that money, fame and power are the common goals of ambition? Give your reasoning.

6. What does the author mean when saying that the world “has limited prizes to offer”?

7. Do you agree with the authors comment on the role of the educated?

8. Comment on what is implied by being “treated to fine pharisaical spectacles”?

9. Why are the attacks on ambition generally so frequent in the society?

10. What is wrong with the title “Blind Ambition” according to the author? Do you agree with him?

11. Do you agree that “to discourage ambition is to discourage dreams of grandeur and greatness”?

12. Explain how ambition is opposed to mere fantasizing.

13. What do you think it means “to run on ambition”

14. How do you visualize the world “shorn of ambition”?

15. What does it mean “to live in drift”? And how is it opposed to living “with purpose”?

2. Work in pairs. Basing on the words and phrases below in A), B), C), D) guess the number of each of the 4 paragraphs, taken out of the text, and add words and expressions which may help retell them. Try to be as close to the source text as possible. Correct your partner’s retelling and help to improve.

A) define, instantly, neutral, ardent, assume, for at least a century, precisely, be distrusted.

B) antisocial, out-moded, individualism, to be on one’s own, to rise above, rivalrousness, to be determined to get, jesuitical, a dog-eat-dog world.

C) imagine, a kinder world, demands, abrasions, competition, tension, stress, celebratory, functions, a social unit, former power, to drain away, to bring about, stretch on.

D) a strong view, myth, sham, to be at bottom empty, alongside, to be worth esteeming, cultivating; to secretly admit, useless actions, implications, posterity.

3. Working with a partner and discussing every point, fill in the blanks with the links from the box below. Abstain from looking at the source text.

A.

to believe otherwise, obviously, therefore, now, likely, there is a strong view that holds that, soon enough.

_____1. success is a myth, _____2.an ambition is a sham. Does this mean that success does not really exist? That achievement is at bottom empty? That the efforts of men and women are of no significance alongside the force of movements and events? ____3. not all success, ____4. , is worth esteeming, nor all ambition worth cultivating. Which are and which are not is something one____5. learns on one’s own. But even the most cynical secretly admit that success exists; that achievement counts for a great deal; and that the true myth is that the actions of men and women are useless. ____6. is to take on a point of view that is ____7. to be deranging. It is, in its implications, to remove all motive for competence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity.

B.

immediately, though; one can, after all; even, precisely, first and foremost, instantly

Ambition is one of those peculiar words: define it and you ____1. reveal a great deal about yourself. ____2. that most neutral of works, Webster’s in its Seventh New Collegiate Edition, gives itself away, defining ambition ____3. as an “ardent desire for rank, fame or power”. Ardent ____4. assumes a heat incommensurate with good sense and stability, and rank, fame and power have come under fairly heavy attack for at least a century. ____5. be ambitious for the public good, for the alleviation of suffering, for the enlightenment of mankind, ____6. there are some who say that these are____7. the ambitious people most to be distrusted.